Committee on Oversight and Accountability Meeting November 13

Yes, I sat through the two hours and fifteen minutes (there about) of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability meeting about what is going on in the world of UAP. In the opening remarks by Nancy Mace, we are told that UAP demand attention (with which I think we all agree). Quoting a Colonel Carl, she said that there were non-humans interacting with us and that high-ranking people knew it. That is a somewhat provocative statement with which to open the hearing. You can watch the hearing here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT2iWKZr0qA

Robert Garcia told us that the Main Stream Media is taking the matter seriously, or more seriously than in the past. He also noted that the hearings were about getting at the truth.

There were those on the committee who told us other things that we all knew. We were told that the allegations by David Grusch have not been verified. Although Garcia didn’t elaborate, he was referring to the claim that there had been twelve crash retrievals. We are told that some of the committee members, maybe all of them, want more legislation for the study of UAP and we all know how well congressional legislation has been in helping us get at the truth in the past.

I noticed that we get some history, or rather a mention of history when Jared Moskowitz said that investigations went back to 1945, which is probably a reference to the Foo Fighters of the Second World War.

Once all the members had a chance to make statements, the emphasis switched to the witnesses that were retired Rear Admiral Timothy Gallaudet, Lue Elizondo, Michael Shellenberger and Michael Gold. They were asked, in turn they thought of the UAP situation and all suggested something outside of our technological abilities existed, but not that it was necessarily from alien visitation.

Swearing in of the witnesses. From left to right Rear Admiral Timothy Gallaudet,
Lue Elizondo, Michael Shellenberger and Michael Gold.

Gallaudet said that while serving in the Navy, in a large-scale exercise, he received an email about the intrusion of unknown craft that seemed to be a danger to that exercise, specifically, the aviation assets that were being employed. The email, from a higher authority, wondered if there was some secret project, to which he knew nothing that might account for these intrusions and if they continued, they would cancel the exercise. Gallaudet said that the next day, the email was gone and in the after-action briefings, that concern was never mentioned… And, now, as far as I know, based on the testimony, there are no copies of the email offered in evidence.

I hadn’t expected much in this hearing, but Lue Elizondo did make several comments that were interesting. He said that UAP were real and that the US was in possession of UAP material, though he didn’t specify what that material might be, and that some foreign nations also had access to some form of alien material.

Once they got beyond the opening statements which seemed to include most of the free world, each member in attendance was given five minutes to ask questions or to pontificate. Here is where I thought we might get into the nuts and bolts of the situation but that somehow evaded us.

In the questions address to Gallaudet, especially those about the intrusions during the exercise, we learned nothing new. His answers to some of those questions was that he was prohibited from talking about specifics in a public forum. He would answer them in a closed session.

We had a similar experience with Elizondo. He mentioned that those answers he could give were in his book, which had been in review by officials in the Pentagon for more than year before it was published. He said there were crash retrievals, but he would only talk about them in a closed session.

Later in the hearings, Elizondo would mention bodies. He said bodies were collected before he was born. I believe this is a vague reference to the Roswell case, which is from July 1947. But he would also say that he couldn’t talk about retrievals in an open session.

Shellenberger, who was the source of the information about Immaculate Constellation, said that he trusted his sources on that information, but he wouldn’t reveal them. He said that were either still in he government or had been in the government, but not in which agencies they have worked. He also said that his sources had told him that the government was sitting on piles of information about UAP, including high resolution photographs and other material. But he wouldn’t say who these sources were, only that they were credible, based on his knowledge of who they were and his checking out their backgrounds.

Gold provided a good answer on why some of this information has been hidden. It could expose weaknesses in our capability to respond to the threats. That would be information that our adversaries in the world would want to have.

Update: Shellenberger had provided a document about Immaculate Constellation to the committee members prior to the beginning of the session. Thanks to Nancy Mace, you can read that document here:

https://mace.house.gov/immaculateconstellation 

There is one point that I should make and here is probably the best place. There was a discussion that military personnel had been injured by UFOs and that those people were being compensated for those injuries. Once again, no names were offered, but I thought immediately of John Burroughs who had been injured during the Rendlesham Forest events of December 1980.

I also know of others who claimed they were injured by UFOs, including Betty Cash and Vickie Landrum, coincidentally during their sighting of a glowing, diamond-shaped object also in December 1980. Neither of the women were compensated by the government.

This provides a short rundown on what went on in those two hours and fifteen minutes of hearing. When one committee member said that those on the committee who wanted additional information and didn’t know where to begin to look for it (and I sympathize with them on that point), he was told that the information could be discussed in a closed session.

My problem was that we learned nothing new, there were no sources named or documents presented, other than one that was so heavily redacted that it was useless*, and all the information was second hand at best. I have said before and I’ll say it again, Don Schmitt, Tom Carey and I have talked to the men and women who had first-hand knowledge. We can name names and have taped, both audio and video, of these witnesses.

There were some positives that came out of the hearing. I mean, here was a hearing about UAP with suggestions of an off-world presence, observed technology that was beyond our means to create, an interest in the topic by the Main Stream Media that was not wrapped in ridicule, and a suggestion that an unbiased, scientific investigation was needed.  

The members of the committee seemed to be interested in the topic and were searching for answers rather than attempting to misrepresent the situation and taking the discussion into areas that have nothing to do with the problem. All the witnesses, who were under oath, when asked, answered that they believed, based on their person experiences that the answer was alien visitation or that they didn’t know what the answer might be. There didn’t seem to be anyone who ridiculed the idea that we have been visited alien creatures.

There was a suggestion that the stigma be removed from reporting of UAP because, to solve the problem, the information must be received by those who can use it. If people are afraid to report what they have seen or experienced, then no research can be conducted and we solve no problems.

In reality, this hearing was what I expected, long on suggestion but short on evidence. Too many times, the answer to a specific question was that the witness couldn’t talk about it in an open hearing, or that his sources would not be revealed. There was nothing that we, on the outside, could do to learn more, no real cases that we could study because we don’t have the necessary information, and a little too much speculation. I can’t say that I was disappointed in the hearing because I didn’t expect it to reveal very much.

Or, as my good friend from Operation Iraqi Freedom would say after many staff meetings, “There is two hours and fifteen minutes that I won’t get back.”

*Stan Friedman used to show a heavily redacted report that contained only one or two words per page. When the whole document was eventually released, we learned it had little to do with UFO research and a great deal to do with intelligence collections methods. 

'X' Zone Broadcast Network - Terry Lovelace, Alien Abductions and Past Lives

 

Terry Lovelace was the guest this week. He appeared in the UFO community after the publication of his book, Incident at Devil’s Den, which told the story of his

abduction and subsequent interrogation by the Air Force Office of Special Investigation. He described, briefly, the incident in this latest interview. I had spoken with him months earlier to learn more about the experience. You can listen to that original interview here for additional information:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/17671590

Before we started, however, I did mention pictures that have been circulating on the Internet, which are supposed to be the remains of the Roswell UFO. They are, in fact, the remains of an A-12 spy plane that crashed in Utah in 1963. You can read my original posting about that here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2022/01/attip-philip-corso-and-roswell-crash.html

From that point, we did talk about Terry’s experiences and his observations. The important point was the involvement of the AFOSI. That had led me to write, UFOs and the Deep State, in which I do mention Terry’s experiences. I also noted that his involvement with the AFOSI mirrored the experiences of those who had been in Rendlesham Forest including John Burroughs and Jim Penniston. Charles Halt suggested that he had not been interrogated by the AFOSI but knew that many of the airmen involved had been. All of this suggested corroboration for Terry’s story. You can listen to the new interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/49027816

We did also talk about his experiences with past life regressions. He had done six of them were some interesting results and did mention the story of a small boy who was apparently a reincarnated Corsair pilot from the Second World War. Although I hesitate to mention it because this becoming a commercial for my books, I had dealt with an alien abduction case that evolved into a past life regression some decades earlier. That book Conversations is an interesting story and can be found on Amazon.

He had mentioned to me, prior to the interview, that he had become interested in exploring those past lives after he was trained in the techniques of hypnotic regression. He hadn’t interviewed many persons about this. I think he said six, but he had some success with it. I mentioned the Bridey Murphy case, which was a quite controversial episode from the 1950s. There is plenty of information about this on the Internet, but if you chose to explore it, be aware of the bias of those making the reports.

In the next couple of weeks, I’ll be talking with John Greenewald about his latest findings from his FOIA requests and his opinions on what is happening in the world of the UFO. The following week, I’ll interview David Marler about triangular UFOs and the project to scan many UFO related documents held by UFO researchers. As always, if you have questions for either of these men, append them to the comments section… and remember, these are not necessarily published.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Peter Robbins

 

Peter Robbins was my guest this week. As I explained, I invited him on after I had read a posting in which he was defending Travis Walton. I think most of you know by now that Walton and Mike Rogers have been in a bit of a disagreement about the validity of the Walton abduction. My conversation with Peter, before the show, evolved to the point where we thought it might be more interesting to talk about the investigative process. You can listen to the show here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/46239415

We did delve into the Rendlesham Forest case, though that hadn’t been my intention. We got some insight into how Peter was drawn into the case and his thinking over the years. We didn’t talk much about Larry Warren and his involvement, though we do touch on some of that.

Peter Robbins

One of the things that we did sort of dwell on was the number of nights of the event. I had just finished a rewrite, update, and revision of my two decades old book, Project Moon Dust. Like many others, I have been confused about the number of days for the event, but had straightened that out in my mind. The problem was that the episode for which Rendlesham Forest is known began on the night of December 25 but carried on until after midnight on December 26. That was day one. Day two began in the evening of December 26 and carried on until after midnight on December 27. The last part began on the evening of December 27, though activity carried on until after midnight, everyone views that as December 27. As I say, confusing.

Peter told of his first trip to England and to Rendlesham Forest in which he witnessed some of the strange things that happen there. John Burroughs had told me that strange things were happening there before the December 1980 events and continue on until today.

We did talk about investigations and Peter talked about his learning methods while associated with a New York police detective and later with Budd Hopkins. He talked about following one aspect of the case until it played out and then following another and of course, another which is interviewing the witnesses. He was building the case on multiple legs. What he was talking about is what I call multiple chains of evidence… pictures and radar and landing traces and witness testimony. The best cases have these multiple chains of evidence.

On a side trip, I mentioned the illustrations of the aliens made by Pat Roach after her abduction. I thought it interesting, and apropos of nothing at all, that her artistic talent increased under hypnotic regression. I also 

thought appropriate I gave her a green felt tip pen to make the drawings. You can see the difference yourself.

Finally, we talked about the death of James Forrestal, who was the first Secretary of Defense. We did examine the history that went into the creation of the Department of Defense, and how Forrestal had served in the public arena until his mental breakdown. Although history tells us that Forrestal committed suicide, Peter suggested the evidence he examined suggested murder. He makes a compelling case for drawing that conclusion.

Next week, I’ll be talking with Dr. Abraham (Avi) Loeb about his Galileo Project and the detection of the object that he is convinced is an alien artifact. Should be an interesting discussion.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Don Ecker and the Current State of UFOs

 

This week I was lucky enough to talk with Don Ecker who has been around the UFO field for a very long time. Many will remember him as one of those behind UFO magazine and the host of a number of radio shows dealing with UFOs. Of course, you can listen to the our discussion here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/45054526

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/45054531

We did talk about a wide range of topics. One of the interesting subjects was Dr. Eric Davis and Admiral Thomas Wilson who supposedly had a secret meeting a number of years ago. Don added an interesting perspective to this tale. For those interested, you can read more about it here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/09/x-zone-broadcast-network-joe-murgias.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2020/06/dr-eric-davis-and-admiral-thomas-wilson.html

I did write more about Davis, but much of it dealt with Davis’ claim that the Del Rio UFO crash was real. If you wish to pursue this line of thought, just type Eric Davis into the search engine and you’ll probably learn more than you care to about Davis and his claims about Del Rio.

Don and I also delved, slightly, into tales of stolen valor and those who claim Vietnam service when it is clear they never served in Vietnam. That, of course led us to Cliff Stone and his somewhat tall tales about his experiences in Vietnam. True, Stone did serve in Vietnam but not the four tours he claimed and it is clear that he was a clerk and not an infantry soldier. Some of that service seemed to be in the theater of operations but might not have been actually in Vietnam.

Don and Vicki Ecker and a pal.

In the second show, we enter the realm alien abduction, including possible explanations for it and some observations about it. This moves us to Rendlesham Forest and the information provided by Jim Penniston and John Burroughs about their experiences and possible hypnotic and chemical regressions. Terry Lovelace and his experiences are also discussed. I outlined those in UFOs and the Deep State.

In the two shows, we tried to cover some of the aspects of the UFO field as it exists today. We both have military back grounds and both had high-level top-secret clearances so that we can speak was some authority on how those things work. We provide some insights that should be useful to those who wish to engage in additional research. I try to ensure that there is enough information for those others to begin their work.

Next up are Jacques Vallee and Paola Harris to talk about their book, Trinity: The Best Kept Secret. If you have questions, put them in the comment section. I’ll review them and try to get them answered, though I have many questions myself.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - John Steiger

This week I spoke with John Steiger, a long-time friend who has just published a book of plays called The UFO Trilogy – Dramas for the Stage. You can, of course, listen to the show here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/37816825

Although I hadn’t planned on spending so much time on the Roswell “trial,” the discussion just went in that direction. John’s idea was to present the Roswell case

Sheridan Cavitt. Photo
copyright by Kevin Randle.

as a civil trial by questioning the “witnesses” on the stand. Although the majority of the witnesses are those who saw some aspect of the Roswell debris, or participated in the recovery of that debris, there were witnesses on the other side, including Sheridan Cavitt, Charles Moore and Irving Newton. We did spend some time identifying who the witnesses were so that everyone would be able to understand the relevance of the people called to testify.

The second drama is a Board of Inquiry that is investigating the Rendlesham Forest events of December 1980. Here there are only three witnesses, Jim Penniston, John Burroughs and Charles Halt. Each has his own act, and providing their perspective on the observation and landing of a craft. The idea was to have a single

John Burroughs.
Copyright by
Kevin Randle

interrogator, but fill out the other four Board slots with members of the audience. As John put it, they might have the best seats in the house.

The last of the dramas is “Will to Believe: The Brooklyn Bridge UFO Investigation.” This involves the Budd Hopkins’ investigation into the Linda Cortile abduction which might have included a Secretary General of the United Nations. John expressed his concern for the accuracy of the information as reported by Hopkins originally. I would have been a little more forceful, suggesting that this case wasn’t nearly as strong as Hopkins might have suggested.

I fear that we didn’t have enough time to properly examine the last two dramas. All three are intriguing. The dramas are available in a single volume which can be found at Amazon, quite naturally. They were published by Flying Disk Press, and in the interest of full disclosure, my recent book, The Best of Project Blue Book has the same publisher.

Next up is Rob Swiatek, who will be telling us a little bit about the beginnings of MUFON, which is the outgrowth of an accusation levelled a number of months ago. Of course, we won’t be limited to that and will delve into the current crop of UFO sightings as well. If you have questions for Rob, submit them here and I’ll get them asked during the program.

And a follow up for last week... Philip Mantle, by way of Robert Fischer, supplied the following link to an interview with Charles Hickson. It might be of interest to those of you who were intrigued by last week’s interview with Calvin Parker about their abduction in 1973. You can listen to it here:

https://archive.org/details/TheForceBeyond_201609

X-Zone Broadcast Radio Network - Curt Collins

This week I talked with Curt Collins about research that he and others have been

Curt Colllins

conducting into the AATIP program and the relation between MUFON, Bigelow Aerospace, and research into UFOs. It seems to be a rather complicated relation and I fear that we might not have been able to cover it was well as possible given that complexity. You can listen to the interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/24030651

And, you can read the first part of the report on how the money flowed from the government to Bigelow Aerospace to MUFON. As I said, repeatedly in the program, there was nothing nefarious in this, it just seemed to be a little too sneaky for me. In the world where we keep calling for transparency, not much of this was public while the program was in operation. You can read the first part of the story here:

https://www.blueblurrylines.com/p/only-three-of-participants-pictured.html

Although the show was made up of trying to understand all these links and what they meant, we did speak, briefly, about the Cash-Landrum UFO sighting and the relation to that in Rendlesham Forest at the same time. Both incidents resulted in what seem to be injuries to the parties involved. It is important to note that John Burroughs, one of the Air Force personnel involved at Rendlesham, was awarded full medical disability by the government because of his injuries.

By coincidence, next week, I’ll be speaking with Jan Harzan, the executive director of MUFON. We’ll talk a little bit about the revelations that Curt provided, but the program will reach into other arenas as well.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - John Burroughs

After I had interviewed Charles Halt a few weeks ago, I heard from John Burroughs. During our discussion about the Halt interview, John said a couple of intriguing things. I thought he might be able to provide a different perspective on the Rendlesham Forest encounter, so I talked with him this week. You can listen to the interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/20665258

We started out discussing his involvement in two days of the main events of late

John Burroughs

December 1980, but delved into some of the reports that suggested strange things had been seen in the area for months before that and after. John was just telling us that sightings were not limited to those three days.

I had been somewhat confused some of this until I had talked with John about his involvement. Jim Penniston and John worked for different organizations on the base. There was a separation of police and security forces. Two different functions for two different units with two difference chains of command under most circumstance.  I learned that John was out there with Jim for the first big event on the first night and while Jim saw what he thought of as a craft, John saw lights.

We talked about the second day that involved a different crew and how one member of that crew had been badly frightened by what she saw. John suggested

Jim Penniston

that she was gone from the base in what seemed like a matter of days, maybe a matter of hours.

On the third night, John wasn’t on duty, but when he learned that something was going on out in the forest, he and a couple of others moved to East Gate on the base perimeter. Eventually, John went forward and although Chuck Halt mentioned on this program that John had been in the background on that third night, I have a taped interview on which Halt mentions that only John and one other were in front of him. Is this the fog of memory, or is there something a little more nefarious involved? You can listen to both the latest Chuck Halt and Jim Penniston interviews here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/20149199

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/19539741

From there we got into a discussion that suggested that others, from outside the Bentwaters base, had been flown in, quickly, to conduct “debriefings.” They arrived on an aircraft that had Langley Air Force Base markings. Although it seems that hypnosis was used on the enlisted personnel, it is also possible that there were chemical interrogations. John wasn’t sure if chemicals had been used, but thought there was to a real possibility.

We ended the discussion with a couple of theories that suggested that there might have been a more terrestrial explanation for those events… one that did not involve the lighthouse that is a favorite of the skeptics, but something that might have to do with some of the experiments being conducted by British scientists in the area. Apparently, there was a history of British research in the area for, what, decades.

Yes, we jammed quite a bit into the hour. There were so many other avenues to explore but we just ran out of time. I’m now going to take a couple of weeks off for the holidays, but will be back with some more interesting interviews. We’ll be running some of the “best of” segments during this short hiatus.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Colonel Charles Halt

Charles Halt, of Bentwaters fame, was the guest this week. The discussion was about the events of December 1980, what he personally saw, and the reaction of the senior officers of the Air Force to those events. He mentioned interrogations of the enlisted personnel that including hypnosis and chemical regression. His

Colonel Charles Halt

suspicion was that outsiders were responsible for these interrogations and that it was the CIA who conducted them. You can listen to the interview here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/20149199

During the discussion, we touched on exactly what he had seen and who had been with him on that night. We learned that John Burroughs was involved on both the first night and on the third night, clearing up a problem I had seen in the testimony by Jim Penniston, who was interview on this program a couple of weeks earlier. You can listen to that interview here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/search?q=Jim+Penniston

One of the things that caught my attention was Halt saying that there were more sightings than just the three nights that everyone talks about. He provided some

Jim Penniston. Photo
copyright by Kevin Randle

examples, including those in which the security force at the weapons facility had engaged intruders, suggesting that the intruders weren’t human.

There was a lot of information packed into the hour. Because his answers were short, we were able to get into several other events around the sightings. Halt confirmed that there were radar tracks of the UFO at the time of the sighting, but that someone, or rather a group of someones, had removed the tapes of the radar screens. Someone also took the various log books and police blotters that covered those nights in December. In other words, Halt was saying there was a cover up that extended up the chain of command and beyond, going all the way to Washington, D.C.

Next week, for a change of pace, I’ll be talking with Michael Shermer of Skeptic magazine. The discussion should be interesting. If you have questions for him, send a note to the comments section and I’ll ask him during the show.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - Jim Penniston

This week I reached out to Jim Penniston of Rendlesham Forest fame. I wanted to get his take on the events there. He was involved in the first night of sightings, but had not been with Colonel Charles Halt on what was apparently the third night

Jim Penniston

when Halt and John Burroughs approached the landed craft.

Penniston said he walked up to it and actually touched in on that first night. You can listen to his story here:

https://www.spreaker.com/episode/19539741

Penniston also provided some information about the aftermath of his sighting, including the fact that there had been a recording of the radio transmissions that had been made during the sighting. He said that a four-star general had retrieved that recording and that it disappeared into the great maw of the Pentagon.

To get a full picture of the Rendlesham Forest events, told by those who participated in them, you can read about my interviews with John Burroughs and Charles Halt and listen to them on the embedded links here:

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/01/x-zone-broadcast-network-colonel.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/02/x-zone-broadcast-network-return-of.html

http://kevinrandle.blogspot.com/2017/04/x-zone-broadcast-network-john-burroughs.html

To help understand the actual timeline of the Rendlesham Forest events, Penniston has written a book about it. The Rendlesham Forest Enigma: Book 1: Time Line is available at Amazon.

Next week I’ll be talking to Robert Charles Cornett about our experiences in UFO research including our trip into the heart of cattle mutilation country in the mid-1970s.

If you have questions for with Bob Cornett or me, ask them in the comment section here, and I’ll attempt to get them answered during the interview.

Larry Warren, Rendlesham Forest and an Audio Tape

In 1995, I wrote a book, Project Moon Dust, in which I discussed the events at Rendlesham Forest in December 1980. It was an analysis that was based on the research that I done up to that point. For those who don’t know, back then, the case was quite confusing. Just who all was involved? How many days did the event last? Did anyone actually get close to an object or was it just lights in the forest? Lots of questions and only a few good answers.

John Burroughs

To expand on this, I had spent some time in California with Russ Estes, a documentarian who was involved in the UFO community. According to him, Larry Warren had stayed with him for several months, and Estes, as a documentarian, sat him down in front of his camera, asking him about the activities at Bentwaters. Warren, to prove his credentials, provided the evidence, including photographs and paperwork that he was, in fact, a former member of the Air Force security force at Bentwaters. And, as we all now know, his presence at the base has been confirmed by Colonel Charles Halt, John Burroughs and Jim Penniston. All of them were clearly there as well.

So, what is the problem? Wasn’t it Warren who first told the story to Barry Greenwood and Larry Fawcett? Without Warren, telling the story as Art Wallace, providing the first of the details, the story might have remained buried forever. Warren sparked the interest that lead to the breaking of the cover up or so it seemed.

According to a couple of paragraphs posted online by Philip Mantle, Warren had told Linda Moulton Howe that he hadn’t been directly involved, which changes the whole scenario. Mantle asked if any of us knew anything more about this:

Thanks to Rendlesham researcher Ronnie Dugdale for the information.

Warren admitted to Linda Moulton Howe and Benton Jamieson in an interview recorded by them both on May the 18th 1986 that he was re-telling Adrian Bustinzas story as if it had happened to him.

As recently as a couple of years ago Gary Heseltine was a guest on phenomenon radio. I was disappointed by his lack of knowledge but shocked and amazed that Gary Heseltine who claimed to be one of Britains leading researchers on the Rendlesham Forest Incident was unaware of the Howe/ Jamieson interview.

Directly after the show I sent a full transcript of the interview to Gary Heseltine so he knows the truth but chooses to ignore the evidence.!

Here is a link to my drop box for anyone who cares about the truth to read the full transcript:

https://www.dropbox.com/…/LMH%20Warren%20Jamieson%201986%20…

And, according to Halt, the story was already known in England before Warren had said anything about it. Bentwaters was being discussed in some circles, so even if Warren hadn’t talked to Greenwood and Fawcett, the story would have gotten out. Warren wasn’t all that important to the reporting of the story. Halt is the one who told me that when I interviewed him on the radio version of A Different Perspective. You can listen to that here:

https://youtu.be/lQXAFe-8CpQ

and here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEp8htP6O_g

Back then, in 1995 as I worked on Project Moon Dust, there was something of a controversy about the number of days that transpired. Some thought it was two and others thought it was three. I asked John Burroughs about it and he told me that he thought it was two but Penniston thought that it was three… or maybe it was the other way around. Warren said that he had been involved on the third day but if there was no third day, then Warren’s tale failed.

Peter Robbins

During a conversation held on February 16, 1993, among Halt, Warren and Peter Robbins, Halt told Warren that “You have events from the first night in the second or third night rather intertwined together.”

I think that I have finally solved this portion of the problem. According to what Charles Halt told me, there were three days. One day that involved several members of the security force and a second day that began early in the morning of December 27, that involved different set of witnesses. One of them, Lt. Bonnie Tamplin, who drove out into the woods, had suffered a vehicle failure, and was so freaked out by the experience that she was sent home.

It was that same day, but now late at night, just before midnight and into the morning of December 28, that Halt and the others were involved. In this respect, this is the third day. While I think this explains the problem with the number of days, meaning that everyone was right about the number of days depending on how you looked at it, it really does nothing to validate Warren’s tales. Events in the early morning of the 27^th are counted as one and those happening twenty or some hours later, late at night on the 27^th, account for the confusion. This is the point into which Warren attempted to insert himself.

Russ Estes. All photographs copyright
by Kevin Randle

In the video tape that Estes recorded, Warren seemed to hint that he hadn’t been around for two of the days because he had been on leave in Germany at the time. I mentioned that to Halt during the radio show and he was quite certain that Warren was in England, but not involved in the events in Rendlesham Forest.

There were differing accounts of who was where and who was involved on the critical day.  Halt was there, and according to him, no one was in front of him other than Burroughs and one other airman. Halt told Warren, “There are two nights there that are intertwined. Are you aware of that?”

Warren said that he didn’t and Halt continued. ““You have events from the first night in the second or in the third night rather intertwined together. It’s very puzzling.”

Later in the conversation, Warren said, “I am not married to anything I say. All I have done, or tried to do through the years…” Then as if to alibi his tale said that he had told his mother, who he said could tell whether or not he was lying. From what he said, his mother believed him.

Halt interrupted to ask, “Do you remember two separate, distinct nights, or were you involved on one night?”

Warren replied, “One. But I remember on that night… I can remember people with me and that whole bit.” And then he said the thing that seems to confirm the information that Howe and Benton Jamieson reported. He said, “Whether that is real or created or God Knows now… The strange story with me where your can put a finger on it and say God, something happened with this guy is in the paperwork… What my hopes are is that this is what my mind’s eye says.”

Warren talked about what he had seen or not seen. He said, “…whether I saw a thing explode or didn’t see a bright source of light…”

But Halt interrupted and said, “You couldn’t have been in front of us. There were no people in front of us… You had to be well behind that, at least a hundred, two hundred yards…”

With that, Warren diverted the conversation again. He talked of his eye problems, blaming them on the thing in the forest. Rather than dealing with the discrepancies in his story, he began to talk about other elements of the case.

But rather than take my word for it even though I can provide information about the interview, you can listen to it here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yues8i851bdbdw8/Halt%20Warren.wav?dl=0

The point here, however, is that everything I quoted here is on the tape made in 1993. I would suspect that Warren has a copy of the tape and knows what is on it. I suspect he knows what Halt has said about him and he knows that he wasn’t involved in the sightings but was at Bentwaters in 1980. All this seems to verify what Howe and Jamieson reported. Warren sinks his own tale with his own words and I have no reason to suspect that the interview with Warren in 1986 is not accurate.

X-Zone Broadcast Network - John Burroughs

John Burroughs, of Rendlesham Forest fame, was my guest. We focused, quite naturally, on the December, 1980, sightings there and what all happened from his perspective. You can listen to the program here:

https://youtu.be/rN2llEG7v3s

John Burroughs

I, for a long time, had been confused about the number of days over which the events took place. I had asked Jim Penniston, John Burroughs and Charles Halt that very question and I believe I now know the answer. There were events on three days. On two of them, the first and the last, several members of the security force were involved, and on the middle day, there were only two people were ventured outside the perimeter. From Penniston’s point of view, there were but two days. He and Burroughs were involved on them. But, from the overall perspective (or to get overly punny about it, from A Different Perspective) there were three days. In their book, Encounter in Rendlesham Forest, it is laid out so that all this becomes clearer.

I did ask about the interrogations, but John said he had no real memories of this. He did acknowledge that he had undergone hypnotic regression in an attempt to remember more of what had happened. And we learned, of course, that he now receives VA compensation for service connected disabilities.

This interview is in stark contrast to those provided by Charles Halt. And there are still questions about what had happened, but the real story here might be the reaction of the authorities to the events rather than the events themselves.

Next weeks’ guest: Chase Kloetzke

Topic: MUFON’s Special Assignment Team

Ufology in Decline

Jim Penniston (left) and John
Burroughs.

There are many sides to the Roswell case but what might be most disappointing and more evidence of a decline in UFO research is how contentious the debate has become among those investigating the case. The real problem is not the skeptics or the debunkers, but those who supposedly support the theory it was extraterrestrial in origin. Rather than consolidate the evidence and work for an ultimate solution whatever that solution might be, they argue over trivia, are unwilling to entertain another’s explanation and work to destroy the credibility of the witnesses they don’t like for whatever reason. A united front could provide a path to convincing evidence. Instead, the arguments lead to claims of poor investigation and a presentation of contradictory evidence that inhibits proper research and annoys just about everyone else.

Roswell isn’t the only case that suffers from these multiple viewpoints. The Rendlesham landing of December 1980 has the same problems. There were rumors about the case that began when Art Wallace (a pseudonym for Larry Warren) began to talk about the events. Later others came forward including John Burroughs and Jim Penniston who apparently approached closer to the landed object than anyone else. There was even a letter written by then Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt confirming some sort of unusual event had taken place during those nights in the forest.

Peter Robbins

Eventually Warren would team with Peter Robbins to write Left at East Gate about Warren’s experiences during some of the event. Others would investigate the case, learn the names of other service members who were involved and gather additional evidence. Skeptics provided what they thought of as logical explanations for the events, suggesting that the airmen had been fooled by a number of manmade and natural objects.

Burroughs and Penniston would team with Nick Pope who at one time worked for the British government investigating UFOs and write Encounter in Rendlesham Forest. Although they discuss Warren’s involvement in that book, or maybe alleged involvement, they don’t give it much weight. They do, however, credit him with being among the first if not the first to tell the tale.

So there is a point of contention between the two camps, with one side supporting Warren and suggesting that the other side is, shall we say, less than accurate. The other side points to the problems, briefly, with Warren’s account and his ever changing tale. It does little or nothing to provide a clear picture of what happened. In fact, Robbins was inspired to write a long rebuttal to Pope’s book and post it free online. It can be downloaded here:

http://www.kgraradio.com/peter-robbins-deception-a-review-and-critical-analysis-of-the-book-encounter-in-rendlesham-forest/

I suppose, in fairness, I should mention this is not a new problem. APRO fought with NICAP in the 1950s and 1960s and later with MUFON. Each pushed its own agenda and the truth sometimes got lost in the process. This infighting, which has been lamented in the past, seems to have become worse in the age of the Internet and the truth suffers. Or, in other words, Ufology is in decline.

Encounter in Rendlesham Forest - A Review

In December 1980, there were a series of sightings of lights in the Rendlesham Forest near two USAF airbases located in England. American personnel assigned to those bases, RAF Bentwaters and RAF Woodbridge sighted strange lights and requested permission to investigate. Now Nick Pope, with John Burroughs and Jim Penniston have written a book, Encounter in Rendlesham Forest, dealing with their inside knowledge of the workings of the British UFO desk in the Ministry of Defence and their service with the Air Force during those sightings.

We get the perspective of the sightings from Burroughs who was first out of the gate and into the forest. Penniston, senior to Burroughs, arrived later. Both moved deeper into the woods, and as Burroughs stopped, away from a structured craft, Penniston walked forward and touched it. Both men later said that they became somewhat obsessed with the sighting. Penniston, unable to sleep in the days to follow, eventually wrote a series of ones and zeroes in his notebook that looks suspiciously like a binary code. He also felt compelled to return to the landing site where he found deep impressions in the ground. He made plaster casts of them.

Little of that has been discussed. It was the next night that involved Burroughs and the deputy base commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Halt, that has received the most attention. Halt, leading a group of men, entered the woods, moving toward the lights. Halt made a tape recording of what was happening and what he was observing as they worked their way toward the lights. Later, at the request of his chain of command, he would write a memo that eventually made its way into the public arena. That memo, written within several days of the event, seemed to underscore the strange nature of the event.

Nick Pope, who ran England’s Ministry of Defence UFO project, learned of the case through his work there. He was able to provide an interesting take on how the two governments, British and American, seemed to pass the problem of the sightings off on each other. Both denied jurisdiction over the case suggesting that the other had responsibility. Pope’s insights into that adds a note of credibility to the case.

The one problem I had with the book was its journey into material that while interesting did nothing to advance the case. As but a single example, there was a chapter Beyond Rendlesham that examined briefly, some a few semi-related cases, but not in enough detail help in our understanding of the Rendlesham case. The death of Captain Thomas Mantell while chasing a UFO over Kentucky is reduced to a single paragraph.

But the book shines when it discusses the Rendlesham report. There is new information found through the detailed memories of Burroughs and Penniston, and the information from Halt. Questions about the case have been answered, many for the first time. Skeptical arguments are examined, and according to Pope, do not explain anything. They merely get in the way of attempts to learn the truth.

For those who wish to understand more about this case, who want to see what has been reported by those involved, who wish to read the first-hand accounts of the men involved, this is the book. Others might suggest they were there. Others might suggest that they know more about the case, but it is here that we hear the voices of the men who experienced the UFO landing and the subsequent events.